Batman: Eternal #11 Review

Can Batgirl find any answers in Brazil and will Julia stay long enough for Alfred to make up for his absence? Read on to find out.

The official description from DC Comics:

The trial of Jim Gordon begins!

Batgirl travels to Brazil, and it’s not for the football. This latest issue of Batman: Eternal sees a father focused issue as Barbara search for answers surrounding the devastating train crash. Meanwhile Julia confronts Alfred about his absence, Stephanie Brown digs into her dads past and Catwoman receives a strange letter. Overall this theme was very nice as coming off the back of fathers day it allowed our characters to share a common interest (even if they were in different ways).

As ever Scott Snyder and James Tynion IV handle the story with Tim Seeley writing the script on this occasion and Ray Fawkes and John Layman acting as consulting writers. Seeley utilises the minor set-up from last issue perfectly with Batgirl’s frustration and desire to free her father giving us some intense action. Seeley also impressed me with the way he managed to work the father theme into all the development points. On the other hand I did find the tone and pace of this issue to be slightly inconsistent with the tone of one development point conflicting with the next.

Ian Bertram produces the artwork for this issue with his rough and detailed style really impressing me. The way that he managed to give a high level of detail to virtually every sequence showed great skill with his layouts matching the look of the series perfectly. It was however his unique technique of adding shade and tone that impressed me most with his line work being fantastic. There was however one part of Bertram’s art that had me split and that was the facial expressions. The boldness and intensity that these emotions added really helped add to the dynamic tone but there were times they looked slightly awkward.

Batman: Eternal produces interesting development points with the father them being a fitting addition following fathers day. The conflicting tones on the other hand meant that this wasn’t one of Eternal’s best issue to date. Still however I recommend it.